Your RDA of Irony

The 2015 Underture

On this day in 1882, “The 1812 Overture” premiered. So I asked the leading presidential candidates their opinions of the music and the history it commemorates.

Donald Trump: “I would have known how to conquer Russia. But I am not going to give you the details. Do you think that I want Putin to know?”

Jeb Bush: “So your smug older brother blithely invades a country for no good reason and without the least strategy…and you spend the rest of your life living it down. I know how exactly how Louis Bonaparte felt.”

Scott Walker: “We were fighting Britain, right?”

Ben Carson: “You can get AIDs from listening to Tchaikovsky, especially if you share phonograph needles.”

Hillary Clinton: “If you would like my critique of nineteenth century international diplomacy, press 1. If you would like my assessment of Napoleon, press 2. If you want my fun perspective of Russian music, press 3.”

Bernie Sanders: “You know, my family was in Russia at the time. But we weren’t exactly hobnobbing with the Russian aristocracy at the premiere. The Tsar was more likely to invite us to a pogrom.”